Her wider appeal may have been jeopardized because she wrote characters that broke commonly-held stereotypes of White Northerners and Southerners — The lack of widespread acknowledgement or recognition for Harriet E. Wilson, the first African American novelist and author of Our Nig (1859), comes as a surprise. A New Englander, Wilson reclaimed in her work the domestic, maternal, and liberating space of 19th century women’s fiction. …